For Rue
by Goonlalagoon
Summary: One-shot featuring a collection of Thresh's thoughts throughout the Games.


**Was sorting my documents, and came across this little piece from soon after I read the books (or possibly saw the film), and decided I might as well post it.  
Nothing from the Hunger Games belongs to me.**

* * *

He didn't so much as flinch when his name was called. He didn't even think about it; he was always a closed book, never showing emotion unless he was certain that it was safe to. Besides, he'd been busy feeling so sorry for Rue, the poor kid who'd just reached the stage. She was doing well, for a twelve year old. Head high, no tears. But a slight shake to her shoulders, eyes wide with fear, hands clenched and teeth gritted. Then his name was called, and he was up on the stage on autopilot, face a blank mask, impassive.

* * *

"You'll come home." Thresh glanced down at the child. She was looking up at him, rather than out of the train window. "You could make it." He didn't know what to say. That he thought she could too? It would be a lie, and she'd know it. Better to stay silent, as usual.  
"When you do…"  
"I'll keep an eye on your family."  
"Thanks."

* * *

Even though he knew – had known all along – that she didn't have a chance, he was still shocked when her face appeared on the sky. She'd lasted so much longer than he'd expected her to do, but then no-one would've been hunting her, because she wasn't a threat. But she was gone, the only link here to home, on her way back in a coffin. Poor Rue. No more singing. Once more he felt a twinge of grief for having made it clear that he wouldn't be allies, for having decided that once they were in the arena, that was that. He pushed it away, and promised himself that that was the last time he would think it. Now, there was nobody left that he wouldn't kill.

* * *

The doubt poured back when the stupid Gamemakers changed the rules.  
_I could have saved her. I could have got that poor kid home. _For the first time in a long while, the mask slipped, and he knew that something showed on his face. He wondered what it was. Anger? At himself (_I could have saved her_). Or the Capitol (_why kids? Why change the rules now, once it's too late?_) Sorrow, grief? Or some strange mix of them all? For the moment, he didn't care what the Capitol thought. Only knowing that now, when – if – he got home, he would have to look at the family from across the town and know that if he'd chosen to, maybe their daughter, sister, would have come home too.

* * *

Blood trickling down his wrist from the rock, he glared at the girl from 12.  
_Allies. She paired up with Rue? Why?_ For a moment he hated her, for having done what he hadn't.  
She had avenged her.  
She had sung her to sleep, and buried her in flowers.  
She had cared for her, looked after her, and protected her from the other tributes.  
The things that he wished he'd done, so that he could face himself if he got out. And for the first time since the picture of a child was in the sky, he was relieved. _She didn't die alone. Someone was there for her._  
No thanks to him.  
"Just this once, Twelve. For Rue"

* * *

Maybe it had been a mistake, to take Cato's pack, to make sure that he was followed. It was what was going to kill him, he knew. But he was taking Cato with him. If not now, then at least injured, weakened, for Katniss to kill. Because that was it. If it wasn't him who got home, he wanted it to be the girl from twelve. And he was dying, he knew that. So did Cato.  
_So close. Sorry, Rue. Somone else'll have to keep an eye on your family. Sorry Grandma. I won't be coming home._ It had been going so well, hiding in the grain, staying out of the fighting – Thresh hated fighting, the mindless violence of the games, even though he knew he was good at it – waiting it out. Everyone too scared to find him, to enter the fields that held so much food. Even Rue hadn't dared come near the field once he'd occupied it.  
_Go on, Katniss. Get home. Get home to your sister. And if you can…make them pay. Just this once, make them realise what they're doing, Twelve.  
For Rue._


End file.
